Movie Review: THE LAST SHOWGIRL

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: January 10th, 2025 / 05:55 PM

THE LAST SHOWGIRL movie poster | ©2024 Roadside Attractions

Rating: R
Stars: Pamela Anderson, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Schwartzman
Writer: Kate Gersten
Director: Gia Coppola
Distributor: Roadside Attractions
Release Date: December 13, 2024 (limited theatrical), January 10, 2025 (wide theatrical)

THE LAST SHOWGIRL manages to be both realistically perceptive and a bit dreamy. Directed with authority by Gia Coppola from Kate Gersten’s thoughtful script, THE LAST SHOWGIRL focuses on Shelly (Pamela Anderson), who has spent the last thirty years as a performer in “Razzle Dazzle,” an unironic old-fashioned Las Vegas revue.

Shelly is not the introspective type. She genuinely loves her showgirl job, which includes revealing costumes, with lots of sequins and rhinestones, plus towering high heels and headdresses. Shelly truly can’t understand why some of her fellow “Razzle Dazzle” dancers view the gig as just a paycheck, and a degrading one at that.

Shelly’s life is otherwise fairly contained. She has a tidy house in a mobile home park, and at one time had something going on with “Razzle Dazzle” company manager Eddie (Dave Bautista). Shelly is still friends with former castmate/now casino cocktail waitress Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis). She also makes efforts to connect with her college student daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd).

When it’s announced without warning that “Razzle Dazzle” will be closing in two weeks, the whole company (even the women who aren’t crazy about being there) is thrown for a loop, Shelly most of all.

Shelly is a flawed soul who lacks empathy at key moments. Nevertheless, Anderson presents Shelly’s passion, frustration and odd innocence with such vehemence that we can’t help but feel for her. Lourd and Bautista are both wonderfully natural, Curtis is a convincing mixture of resilience and brittleness, and Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song are persuasive as two of Shelly’s colleagues.

One of the things that Coppola does extremely well is give us Shelly’s point of view about “Razzle Dazzle.” We seldom see the audience, but rather the shine of the lights and the reflected sparkle of the costumes. We intellectually know how mundane all of this is, but we also get a sense of otherworldly wonder. In some ways, THE LAST SHOWGIRL can be seen as a dramatization of the A CHORUS LINE song, “What I Did for Love.” We don’t need to share Shelly’s perspective to believe that she feels it wholeheartedly.

There are elements we expect in character dramas about older people losing longtime jobs, and about older women with regrets. These are present here, but THE LAST SHOWGIRL doesn’t simply hit these notes. It doesn’t pretend to have a lot of answers, but the questions it raises about why we love what we love, what we owe to others and what we owe to ourselves are surprisingly insightful.

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